William Ballard

William Ballard was born about est. 1617 [no baptisum found].

1639.  William Ballard.  an Irishman, bapt a daughter Jane Ballard at St Stephen, Bristol. 24th Feb. [BRO  P/St.S/R/1/a ].

1644.  William Ballard.  Coronet under Sir Charles Coote. Sergent-major Richard Ryves Company, 26 April 1644, Mustered upon the green near Dublin. [The manuscripts of the Marquis of Ormonde, preserved at the castle, Kilkenny v.1 Published 1899 Author Great Britain. Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts.].

1644. estimated ???? William Ballard mar Ann the daughter of Thomas Bailey a Tailor.

1646.  William Ballard.  To the Committee for Composition sitting at Goldsmiths Hall, London. The Humble Petition of William Ballard of the City of Bristol, Stationer, That he lived in the Town of Galway in Ireland where he lost his estate to the rebels and was a cornet under Sir Charles Coote near 2 years ago and on the cessation came to Bristol and there served with Thomas Thomas in his trade a year, after which time His Majesty's forces occupying the city, he was forced to take up arms, but got away and for a quarter of a year followed his trade, when the King's officers found him and dragged him along the streets by his hair, to the prison of Newgate in Bristol where he was kept 14 days and 3 days more in the dungeon, and forced him to go to Cornwall. 

He continued there until the forces were disbanded by His Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax, who gave him a pass to return to Bristol, where he was again received into the service of Thomas Thomas and continued there for three quarters of a year. 

About two months ago, being a Freeman of the City, he did set up for himself and was entrusted with the goods of two stationers here in London, to be accountable for the same, there being on 25 January a fair held there, the said Thomas Thomas out of malice and on false suggestions, caused your petitioner to be sequestered there and his shop shut up, to the utter undoing of himself and his family. 

Petitions them to take the premises into their charitable consideration whereby the said sequestration may be discharged, he being not worth 5 pounds in the World. Signed William Ballard.

1646.  William Ballard.  of Bristol, Stationer, did freely and fully take the National Covenant and subscribe the same.

1646.  William Ballard.  of Bristol, Stationer, took the negative oath, 19 January

The Protestation of 1641 was an attempt to avert the English Civil War. Parliament passed a bill on 3 May 1641 requiring those over the age of 18 to sign the Protestation, an oath of allegiance to King Charles I and the Church of England, as a way to reduce the tensions across the realm. Signing them was a necessity in order to hold public office. Those that were not willing to sign it were also listed under it as refusing to pledge its oath. 

1646/7. 13th October, William Ballard Staciond (sic) of the City of Bristol is admitted into the liberty of the city that he married Ann the daughter of Thomas Bailey Tailor, Freeman of the city of Bristol. [Bristol Burgess Book Entry: -  341 plate 18- 13/10 1646) (BRO FCP -1640 to 1657 index].

1647.  William Ballard.  Heard the petition of William Ballard to be discharged his delinquency - discharged from his sequestration, January. [Committee for Compounding vol. III p. 386-7 21].

1647.  Cases before the Committee: January 1647.  Pages 1637-1657. Wm. Ballard, Bristol, Co. Gloucester. 21 Jan. 1647. Vol. G No. or p. C. 65 120 121 D. 65 123 Begs discharge of his sequestration, maliciously contrived by Thomas Thomas, his late master. Is not worth 5l. Lost all his estate in Galway, Ireland, by the Irish rebels. Was a cornet under Sir Chas. Coote, and took up arms for the King when his majesty's forces possessed themselves of the city; afterwards went into Cornwall, where he continued till be obtained Sir Thos. Fairfax's pass. Is a freeman of Bristol. 65119 21 Jan. 1647. Discharged as being exempt from composition [3386 Calendar, Committee For Compounding: Part 3. Originally published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1891].

1647. 13th April, John Gammage son of Nathaniel Gammage of New Castle in the County of Glamorgan [nr Bridgend?] Clerr. [Clerricus? = Clerk in holy orders] is placed apprentice to William Ballard of the City of Bristol Stationer and Anne his wife ........ for 4 [Qrto?] years payment of 4s 6d for him to become freeman of Bristol at end. [4 years seems a short term.] [Bristol Burgess Book Entry Apprentice].

The Gammage surname appears alongside the Ballards in three separate contexts — medieval Irish juries, the 1641 rebellion depositions, and William Ballard’s Bristol apprenticeship records — forming a repeated pattern of association within English settler and administrative circles. This recurring Ballard–Gammage linkage strengthens the argument that the Galway Ballards belonged to a coherent Protestant settler network, and it supports the plausibility that the displaced Galway Richard could be the same man who later appears as a Protestant landholder in Tipperary. 

“The Gammage family’s marriage into the Vaughan dynasty of Tretower places them within the core Anglo‑Welsh Marcher elite, the same social world in which Ballards appear in Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, Bristol, and later in Ireland. The repeated appearance of Ballards and Gammages together — in medieval Irish juries, in Bristol apprenticeship records, and in the 1641 Galway depositions — reflects a long‑standing association rooted in this Marcher network. This continuity strengthens the argument that the Irish Ballards belonged to the same English–Welsh settler class and supports the plausibility of identifying the Galway and Tipperary Richard Ballards as the same individual.”

“The 1694 PCC will of Anne Ballard of Tretire and Llangarron identifies her as the daughter of Richard Ballard of Llangarron and confirms a continuous Ballard presence in the Herefordshire–Monmouthshire Marches from at least 1603 to the late seventeenth century. Her purchase of land from Phillip Vaughan, gentleman, ties the Ballards directly into the Vaughan–Gammage Marcher gentry network, the same social milieu that supplied English–Welsh settlers to Ireland. This continuity strengthens the argument that the Galway Ballards of 1641 and the Tipperary Richard Ballard of 1666 originated from this Marcher lineage.” 

1648.  William Ballard.  bapt a daughter Anne Ballard at All Saints, Bristol, 1st May. [BRO P/AS/R/1/a ].

Richard Ballard of Galway is known solely from a mid‑seventeenth‑century trade token issued in his name around 1648–1652, identifying him as a Protestant merchant or shopkeeper operating in the town during the Cromwellian period; no parish, civic, probate, or land records link him to any other Ballards in Ireland, and there is no evidence he had a wife, children, or kinship ties to the Dublin administrative Ballards or to William Ballard the stationer. His token places him among the small English Protestant trading community active in Galway during the siege and early occupation years, after which he disappears entirely from the historical record. 

The Only possible continuation found for Richard Ballard

Given the rarity of the name Richard Ballard and Ballard surname in seventeenth‑century Ireland, the documented presence of Protestant Ballards in Galway during the 1641 rebellion, their subsequent disappearance from the region after the Cromwellian reconquest, and the later appearance of a Protestant landholder named Richard Ballard in Tipperary shortly after the Cromwellian land settlement, together with the shared Coote military‑administrative context linking both regions, it is reasonable to consider the possibility that the Galway merchant and the Tipperary landholder may be the same individual. Although this alignment of chronology, geography, religion, and political patronage forms a coherent circumstantial pattern, no direct documentary proof currently confirms the identification. 

Richard Ballard of Ballynclard/Ballinlard, in the parish of Rathlynin, barony of Clanwilliam, Co. Tipperary, is known from his will dated 27 November 1666 and proved the same year in the Diocese of Cashel & Emly. He was a landholder in the townland of Ballynclard (also spelled Ballinlard/Ballynalaid), and his will names his wife Mary, his children John (eldest son, under 21), Thomas (second son, under 21), and Mary (daughter, under 18), as well as his sister Jane Ballard. He also names friends John Jones and John Whalley, and an in‑law John Ware, indicating a local Protestant settler network. Independent genealogical material from the Chadwick family papers confirms that a Richard Ballard of Ballinlard died in 1666, and that his daughter Grace Ballard later married Richard Chadwick in 1692, producing a son named Richard. His social position, landholding status, and integration into the Chadwick–Gabbett–Baker–England settler families place him firmly within the mid‑17th‑century Protestant gentry of Clanwilliam, with no known connection to Galway or to the Dublin stationer. 

It is reasonable to hypothesise — pending further documentary confirmation — that Richard Ballard of Galway most likely originated from the Ballard family of Tretyre and Llangarron in Herefordshire, and may specifically be connected to (or identical with) Richard Ballard, Royalist officer, active in the 1640s. 

1649.  William Ballard.  bapt a daughter Susanna Ballard at All Saints, Bristol. 19th March. [BRO P/AS/R/1/a ].

1651.  William Ballard.  bapt a son Charles Ballard at St Ewens, Bristol.[BRO P/St.E/R/1/a ].

1651. William Ballard, sold at his shop under the sign of the Bible, in Corn Street, in the city of Bristol, 1651

EDWARDS, JOHN (Sion Treredyn) (fl. 1651), was the translator of the 'Marrow of Modern Divinity' into Welsh. It is described as by E. F. (Edward Fisher) [q. v.] in English, and by J. E. in Welsh, printed in London by T. Mabb and A. Coles, for William Ballard, and sold at his shop under the sign of the Bible, in Corn Street, in the city of Bristol, 1651. The dedication, to the Herberts, Morgans, Kerneys, Williams of Gwent, is dated 20 July 1650; the introduction to the reader, apologising for many errors, is dated 10 May 1651. Edwards was ejected from Tredynock in Monmouthshire.

[Rowlands's Cambrian Bibliography; Dr. Thomas Rees's Hist, of Prot. Nonconformity in Wales, 2nd ed. p. 77 note.]

1651. Classmark:  H5133.L28 Author:  LAUD, William, ( Archbishop of Canterbury ) Title:  Seven sermons preached upon severall occasions ... Place of publication:  London: Publisher:  printed for William Ballard, and are to be sold at his shop in Bristoll, Pub Date:  1651. Description:  [6], 339p. Bibrefno:  L0598 Wing L598 (variant edition). Subjects:  Sermons -- (General) -- English -- 17th century. [ Lambeth Palace Library ]

1651.    (British Library) System number    001243048  Author - personal    FISHER, Edward, Theological writer.  Title  [The marrow of modern divinity.] Madruddyn y difinyddiaeth diweddaraf ... O waith E. F. [i.e. Edward Fisher] yn y Saesneg. O cyfiethiad J. E.  [i.e. John Edwards] i’r Gymraeg.  Publisher/year    Llundain: T. Mabb & A. Coles dros WILLIAM BALLARD, 1651. Physical descr.    pp. [303]. 16º.  General note    P. 303 is mutilated.  Added name    E., J.  EDWARDS, John, called Sion Tre-redyn.  F., E.  Added Entry    MADRUDDYN  MARROW  holdings (1)    All items  Holdings (BL)    1607/6239. Request.

1652.  William Ballard.  of Corn Street, Bristol, Booksellor. [Gbooks].

1655.  William Ballard.  of Bristol, Booksellor, Surety Bond to City Chamberlain for repayment of loan received by William Barnelme, hornmaker. other Bondsman Francis Price, Shipwright. [WiltsRO - 1178/673/3].

1655. 30th January, Title Deeds: Lease, William Ballard, Bookseller, to John Bowen, Merchant, Description Land at St Michaels Hill, Bristol [Bristol Records Office Ref No. 4962/2]. 

1655. Author: Farmer, Ralph. Title: The great mysteries of godlinesse and ungodlinesse. Published:London : Printed by S.G. for William Ballard, book-seller in Corn-street, at the sign of the Bible in Bristoll: and Joshua Kirton in Pauls Church-yard., 1655.

1656. (British Library) System number 004057619  Author - personal   HAMAND, Henry.  Title    Ourography or Speculations on the excrements of urine, etc.  Publisher/year  London: printed by R. D. for Francis Eglesfield, and are to be sold by William Ballard, Bookseller in Bristow, 1656.  Related item    Ourography or Speculations on the excrements of urine ... Also, a philosophicall discourse of the colours of urine, with the art of mixing them,  etc. London: printed for Francis Eglesfield, 1655. pp. 83; illus. 8º. (Uk)MP1.0004345635  Related item    Related item: Ourography or Speculations on the excrements of urine ... Also, a philosophicall discourse of the colours of urine, with the art of  mixing them, etc.  holdings (1)    All items  Textual holdings    Humanities C.142.aa.20. [A reissue.]  Holdings (BL)    C.142.aa.20. Request  

1658 15th November,  Anne Ballard wife of William Ballard of St Werburgh's, buried at St James, Bristol [BRO P/St.J/R/1/b ].

1563.  Title - The vvay to heaven discovered: and, the stumbling-blocks (cast therein by the world, flesh, and devill) removed. Or, The ready way to true happines. - Author - Purnell, Robert, d. 1666.  Publication [London] :: Printed for William Ballard of Bristol, and are sold by J. Grismond in Ivie-lane, London, 

1663. Petition of Captain William Ballard, "once a Bookseller in Bristol", to the Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Written from: [Dublin] Date: [30 July] 1663 Shelfmark: MS. Carte 60, fol(s). 288 Document type: Original; endorsed: "Granted" Recites particulars of his former military & loyal service as Cornet of Horse, Captain of Foot, and Captain of Horse; by subsequent employing of himself in the arts of bookbinding & bookselling, when he furnished his Grace - being at Acton - with "books, & all manner of intelligence which came to his hands". ... Prays to be appointed his Grace's bookseller & Stationer in Dublin. [MS. Carte 60. fol(s). 288].

1663. Warrant, by the Duke of Ormond, appointing Captain William Ballard, to be his Grace's Bookbinder and Stationer, in Dublin, "in regard of his constant service and many sufferings for his Majesty" Written from: Dublin Castle Date: 30 July 1663 [Shelfmark: MS. Carte 165, fol(s). 129 Document type: Copy].

Based on surviving records from Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, Bristol, Dublin, and the Irish plantations, it is possible to propose that William Ballard, the stationer active in Bristol and Dublin in the mid‑seventeenth century, belonged to the long‑established Ballard family of Tretyre, Llangarron, and the Wormelow Hundred. This family is documented from at least 1601, when “John Ballard the elder, gentleman” appears in a Tretyre deed, and may link to a Roger Ballard, listed as a free tenant of Crickhowell in a mid‑sixteenth‑century custumal. These early references place the Ballards within the wider Marcher gentry network associated with the Vaughans of Tretower, the Gammages of Glamorgan, and the Herberts of Raglan.

If this continuity is accepted as a working model, then William the stationer may represent a younger son or grandson of this Marcher line, born approximately 1615–1620, apprenticed in Bristol around 1630, and later active as a stationer and government‑connected printer in Dublin during the Cromwellian and Restoration periods. His known associations — including the apprenticeship of a Gammage, military service under Sir Charles Coote, and later integration into the Dublin administrative world — align with patterns seen among other Marcher families who moved between Herefordshire, Bristol, and Ireland during the upheavals of the 1640s–1660s.

This hypothesis also provides a coherent framework for understanding the appearance of Ballards in Galway (1641), Tipperary (1660s), Cork (1670s), and Jamaica (1680s–1700s), as well as the continued presence of Ballards in Llangarron into the late seventeenth century (e.g., the wills of Anne Ballard, 1694, and William Ballard, 1700). While further documentary evidence is required to confirm the precise genealogical links, the geographical continuity, naming patterns, social networks, and occupational trajectories together form a plausible, testable hypothesis for the identity and significance of William Ballard the stationer within the broader Ballard family history.

source notes.

Crickhowell Custumal (c.1541–1565)  

Mentions Roger Ballard, free tenant of Crickhowell.

[Source: NLW, Badminton Estate Records, Manorial 379]

Tretyre/Llangarron Deed (1601)  

Mentions John Ballard the elder, gentleman, landholder in Tretyre.

[Source: A Descriptive Catalogue of Ancient Deeds, Vol. 5, no. 12732]

PCC Will of John Ballard of Tretyre (1603)  

Names sons Richard, John, William, Philip.

[Source: Prerogative Court of Canterbury, PROB 11]

Scudamore’s Defence Papers (Siege of Hereford, 1645)  

Identifies Captain‑Lieutenant Richard Ballard, Royalist officer.

[Source: Civil War accounts; quoted in Duncumb, Webb, Rollinson]

Parliamentary Capture Record (1645)  

Notes capture of Richard Ballard at fall of Hereford.

[Source: Parliamentary military reports, 1645]

Burial of Richard Ballard of Longrove (1672)  

Llangarron parish register.

[Source: Llangarron PRs]

Will of Anne Ballard, spinster of Tretire & Llangarron (1694)  

Daughter of Richard Ballard; names siblings James, William, Elizabeth, Mary.

[Source: PCC, PROB 11/210]

Administration of William Ballard, bachelor of Llangarron (1700)  

Administration to brother James Ballard.

[Source: PCC Administrations, PROB 6/76 f.217]

Gwatkin Letter (1826)  

Records marriage of John Ballard of Treverin & Langrove to Elizabeth Gwatkin; daughter baptised 1696.

[Source: The Gwatkins of Herefordshire, pp. 44–46]

Bristol Apprenticeship Registers (1630s–1650s)  

Entries for William Ballard, stationer; includes apprenticeship of a Gammage.

[Source: Bristol Record Office, Apprenticeship Books]

Bristol Trade & Stationers’ Records  

Confirm Ballard’s activity in the Bristol book trade.

[Source: Bristol Archives, Stationers’ Company records]

Dublin Stationers’ Guild Books (1650s–1670s)  

List William Ballard, stationer active in Dublin.

[Source: Dublin Guild Merchant Books]

Ormond Papers / Dublin Castle Papers  

References to Ballard in administrative or supply roles.

[Source: National Library of Ireland, Ormond MSS]

Military Papers of Sir Charles Coote (1640s)  

Ballard appears in supply or auxiliary roles.

[Source: Irish State Papers, Coote Papers]

Jamaica Muster Rolls (1680)  

Colonel Thomas Ballard; Richard Ballard; William Ballard (Marine).

[Source: Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, Vol. 10]

Naval Wills (1690s–1700s)  

Will of William Ballard, Sergeant in Captain Hodgkin’s Company, HMS Falmouth (1697).

[Source: PCC, PROB 11/437]

Marriage of Richard Ballard & Anne Gummon (1639)  

Little Birch, Herefordshire.

[Source: Little Birch PRs]

Bristol Burial: Richardus Ballard (1728)  

St Nicholas, Bristol.

[Source: Bristol PRs, Film 1595889]

Baptism of Sarah Ballard (1678)  

Daughter of William Ballard, St Philip & Jacob, Bristol.

[Source: Bristol PRs]

153.264931,-9.136941 [GOOGLE MAPS] Ballard Galway